Friday, 27 May 2016

More on the "Care Kids Hard Core"

Yesterday Ella got a phone call from Mike S who hasn't been in touch for nearly 4 years. He lives down in South Wales and at one time he was one of the most active people in the former care kids community.It was quite a surprise to hear from him after so long but it seems as if he came across our blog during a Google search and when he read the entry for Nov 5th 2014 that mentioned him he thought he would have a chat!He is still with the same girl friend that he had when we last heard from him. She is more "mainstream" than him because she comes from a "proper" family who only live about 20 minutes away from the two bedroomed house that Mike S and Maggie share. Maggie's family have been lovely towards him and having a family to turn to has made a big difference to how he now feels about himself and the world in general.He explained to us what went wrong with the Cardiff Conference that he started to organise. There were supposed to be 4, including him, on the organising committee. At the first meeting 3 turned up, at the second meeting only two and at the third and fourth meetings Mike S was there on his own. At which point he gave up on the whole idea! And who could blame him! There is always a mismatch between the large number of people who would like something to happen and the small number of people prepared to do all the work required to make something happen.What with work and family life he has fallen out of contact with many of his former foster care friends. The only person he sees regularly is Paul E who he seems to bump into quite frequently in and around Barry Island. Mike S seems happy with the way his life is moving on and so he must be thought of as one of the real success stories in our wide circle of friends.